Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…
TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.

Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…
TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.

Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…
TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…
TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.

Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…
TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.

Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…
TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

Last night I simply could not sleep. My body was fully awake and my mind was racing too.
At 1am I couldn't get my mind to stop thinking about a little campaign idea for work that could actually fix quite a few issues.
By 2.30 the idea was growing at an exponential rate. I was sending myself a stream of consciousness through a tirade of emails until 4am. This is when I finally got up, switched on my laptop and for the next three hours I crafted the entire campaign, including all the key narrative and marketing plan. I even put it together into a PowerPoint pitch presentation with an AI generated guide brand.
At 9.30 am my boss gave me the green light to progress it. I've been given a team of people who I'm briefing in the morning to deliver it. I've worked almost 35 hours straight at this point and feeling a bit loopy.
The funny thing is that by tomorrow I'll forget the word 'teaspoon' or something equally as ridiculous when the fog settles back over me.

Im 30M with decent skillsets but have strenuous life circumstances, making applying them harder. For reference to said situations im a felon so ive been in the Restaurant industry as a cook for almost 12 years. I also have 4 kids so im kind of stuck as a cook bc I make decent money and cant afford to do something I would like more for less money. I have 8 months of college for graphic design from a college that shut down and I dont think had any transferable credits. I have a heavy affinity with the outdoors,animals,plants, and especially plant medicine. But my felony prevents me from ever working for the government and as its for drugs it will probably bar me from any healthcare practice. My body is well enough to do manual labor and I have experience in Foundation repair however in the past couple of years ive taken some falls and blows showing me my knees and wrist wont work well forever. Im just looking for advice on where to go from here to get out of the kitchen. We may make money but we're miserable and work ridiculous hours, and it just gets worse with management. Graphic design looks like an out but ive done enough research that it looks like they dont make much either unless you're really good. I could go back to college but I hate the risk and im not sure for what besides graphic design. Any help would be appreciated. I feel very stuck

PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 25 YEARS OLD TO PARTICIPATE.

Research study participants wanted: Help campus researchers learn how to measure physical activity using activity monitors and earn up to $750 for one week. IRB Approved.
This study has been reviewed and approved by the Northeastern University Institutional Review Board (#21-02-08).
Name of Investigator(s): Dinesh John, Ph.D. and Stephen Intille. Ph.D.
Title of Project: Accelerating the development of novel methods to measure 24-hr physical behavior
Sponsor: National Cancer Institute
Help Northeastern University researchers learn how to accurately measure everyday behaviors using wearable sensors.
Participants must be healthy individuals between 25-85 years of age, willing and capable of participating in the laboratory session at and near the Northeastern University campus in Boston, and visiting the laboratory on three other occasions during the study.
When? The study takes place over the span of a week. We can find a week that will work for you.
Where? At the Human Performance and Exercise Science Lab on the Northeastern Campus.
What? The study involves one laboratory session of four to five hours where you will do some activities, wearing sensors on your body every day as you go about your daily life for a week, and two nights of sleep wearing more sensors to measure your sleep patterns.
During the laboratory session you will be guided through some light and moderate-to-vigorous intensity activities on and around campus—with plenty of rest.
You will then wear sensors for eight days as you go about your daily life. During this time you will also wear a front-facing body-worn video camera whenever you are awake. The video camera does not record audio.
On two nights, you will visit the lab to be set-up with special sensors to measure your sleep patterns, and then you will go home and sleep with the sensors on.
Each day, you will be asked to describe what you have done during the last 24 hours in a 30-60 minute Zoom session.
At the end of the study you will return to the lab to drop off the equipment and discuss your experience.
You will receive up to $750 in compensation for your participation.
Want to participate?
Contact us to learn more:
[PAAWSstudy@gmail.com](mailto:PAAWSstudy@gmail.com)
PAAWS -- Physical Activity Assessment using Wearable Sensors

PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST BE LOCATED IN OR CLOSE TO BOSTON, MA TO PARTICIPATE.

Research study participants wanted: Help campus researchers learn how to measure physical activity using activity monitors and earn up to $750 for one week. IRB Approved.
This study has been reviewed and approved by the Northeastern University Institutional Review Board (#21-02-08).
Name of Investigator(s): Dinesh John, Ph.D. and Stephen Intille. Ph.D.
Title of Project: Accelerating the development of novel methods to measure 24-hr physical behavior
Sponsor: National Cancer Institute
Help Northeastern University researchers learn how to accurately measure everyday behaviors using wearable sensors.
Participants must be healthy individuals between 25-85 years of age, willing and capable of participating in the laboratory session at and near the Northeastern University campus in Boston, and visiting the laboratory on three other occasions during the study.
When? The study takes place over the span of a week. We can find a week that will work for you.
Where? At the Human Performance and Exercise Science Lab on the Northeastern Campus.
What? The study involves one laboratory session of four to five hours where you will do some activities, wearing sensors on your body every day as you go about your daily life for a week, and two nights of sleep wearing more sensors to measure your sleep patterns.
During the laboratory session you will be guided through some light and moderate-to-vigorous intensity activities on and around campus—with plenty of rest.
You will then wear sensors for eight days as you go about your daily life. During this time you will also wear a front-facing body-worn video camera whenever you are awake. The video camera does not record audio.
On two nights, you will visit the lab to be set-up with special sensors to measure your sleep patterns, and then you will go home and sleep with the sensors on.
Each day, you will be asked to describe what you have done during the last 24 hours in a 30-60 minute Zoom session.
At the end of the study you will return to the lab to drop off the equipment and discuss your experience.
You will receive up to $750 in compensation for your participation.
Want to participate?
Contact us to learn more:
[PAAWSstudy@gmail.com](mailto:PAAWSstudy@gmail.com)
PAAWS -- Physical Activity Assessment using Wearable Sensors

Hello,
I am GC'ing my own pool and have done this business for the longest on the labor side of things. I have the knowledge to do it but I do not know how to get my pool equipment like pumps, heaters etc. Can any of you guide me?

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard once wrote about the effects of private telematics on the living subject (preferably metropolitan or suburban, like the majority of this sub and myself), and I've always found his account acutely prescient,

"today one's private living is conceived of as a receiving and operating area, as a monitoring screen endowed with telematic power, that is to say, with the capacity to regulate everything by remote control. Including the work process, within the prospects of telematic work performed at home, as well as consumption, play, social relations, leisure. One could conceive of simulating leisure or vacation simulations in the same way that flight is simulated for pilots [...] We know that the simple presence of a television transforms our habitat into a kind of archaic, closed-off cell, into a vestige of human relations whose survival is highly questionable."

Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstacy of Communication, 1987:88, pp. 17-8
As the sub is aware, the sharp decline in office occupancy in our downtown finds its immediate cause in the severity of the pandemic. I believe, however, that what is underemphasized in this reorientation is the total reconsideration of the logic of business communications that's happened. In an article about the history of office buildings, published by Morgan Lovell (a British firm specializing in interior office design), there is an idea of the administrative necessity of physical centralization. The article uses historical examples to undergird this point,

"Organisations such as the Royal Navy and East India Company were established to further Britain’s interests overseas. A central base of operations needed to be built to manage their incredibly varied tasks and organisation. East India House was built in 1729 on Leadenhall Street in the City of London as the HQ from which the East India Company administered its Indian interests. Thousands of employees were based in the building to process the necessary paperwork [...] Like the Roman politicians, The East India Company understood the necessity for centralised administration, and the efficiency this brought to what was essentially a process of making and distributing vast amounts of money. In this way, many non-political organisations followed suit – such as Sir John Soane’s Four Percent Office in the Bank of England, erected in 1793."

While centralized organization seems to remain essential for modern business, this centralization is growing less dependent (through contemporary technics) on a final site in three dimensional space, whose utility has always been founded on its ability to concentrate resources and information. Urbanists will (and probably already have) descend on the post-pandemic office landscapes of D.C. to articulate the rational blunder of such a monofunctional zoning schema, and why shouldn't they? Now is the most opportune time for advocating new zoning possibilities. It ought be maintained, however, that considering this downtown contraction to simply be the result of bad zoning, is incomplete. This development is only possible through the timely innovations of communications technology, which have engendered a change in what private telematics are good for.
Simply put, the local economy in this section of town was still too predicated on the necessity of the physical presence of labor-power, for work to ensue. For a long time, the purpose of communications tech was to close interpersonal gaps, lessening relational latencies between various 'nodes' in an organizational network. A filmic example of this would probably be something like Demon lover (don't watch this with children), where you have this mobile business class who use telematics and telephonics to compensate for the fact that their physical presence is not instantaneous; a phone call to Tokyo is followed up by a business trip, &c. Furthermore, they return back to their offices, and still conceive of their itinerary as beginning and ending in the office. Personal interface was still superior, mediated interface ameliorative. This state/conception of technology still works in confluence with a "presentist" mindset that values a physical center, hence the relatively high pre-pandemic occupancy, even with more complex informing networks.
The burgeoning logic constitutive of the continued lacking occupancy is one where telematics and telephonics no longer compensate for interpersonal latencies, but totally supplant a classic conception of presence, forcing a logical reconsideration of the utility of forced travel and physical convention. Perhaps, in the vein of Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco, telematics offers us something BETTER than the the real of classical presence, that being the variable hyperreal of omnipresence, of being here, there, and everywhere else by way of "remote control." One of Baudrillard's great themes is the demand of capital surpassing the limits of the real, and the terrestrial real of geography becomes, as Baudrillard would later write, a "vast, useless body." In summary, what has happened in D.C. since the pandemic is precisely another instance of a larger movement in media relations, which is the making-superfluous of physical spaces, redrawing new lines of relation for business and the social reproduction of the worker.

Hola, primero quiero decir que me cree una cuenta para no doxearme y por lo tanto algunos datos no importantes no son reales.
Espero puedan leer todo.
Bueno con mi pareja nos fuimos de Stgo a vivir a una comuna al sur, compramos terreno y construimos y ahora vivimos aquí, mi pareja trabaja para el estado, en un programa para familias vulnerables, dependiente de una subsecretaria, pero a través de una licitación/convenio con las municipalidades. En este convenio están todos lineamientos del programa, sueldos, metas, funciones, marco teórico, contrato de honorario, modo de trabajo etc. Dentro de este convenio se incluye un ítem en el que se especifica que el trabajo es con horario flexible, ya que la atención a la familias es donde ellos puedan y a la hora que puedan, el convenio también indica presencialidad solo cuando existan reuniones técnicas del equipo con un profesional de la subsecretaria.
El equipo de trabajo se conforma de 7 personas, uno de ellos supervisor (cabe mencionar que ninguno es de la comuna de origen, esto es importante para lo que detallare después), y a su vez la municipalidad elije un representante para que funcione de enlace entre este equipo y la municipalidad para gestiones mas administrativas.
Ahora esta persona de la municipalidad desde el minuto que se instala este programa a intentado por todos los medios entorpecer el trabajo de este equipo, primero empezó por eliminar la flexibilidad laboral aludiendo a que el convenio es solo una propuesta y no una especie de “marco legal” para el funcionamiento del programa, por lo cual ahora mi pareja esta obligada a ir a la municipalidad a marcar entrada y salida, además obliga al equipo de trabajo a mantenerse de de 8:30 a a 17:30 en una oficina de la municipalidad, y solo pueden salir para las visitas a terreno, pero deben informarle cada vez que salen y vuelven, la mayoría de las familias no se encuentran disponibles durante esos horarios por lo cual mi pareja siempre se tiene que quedar entre las 18:00 y 21:00 en terreno, el fin mismo de la flexibilidad horaria es evitar estos casos.
Como si esto fuera poco esta persona ha bloqueado durante ya 5 meses el pago de un dinero ( 45000 al mes) por concepto de movilización, aludiendo a que no existían controles para verificar que esa plata se gaste en movilización ya sea bencina o pasajes, en las otras municipalidades donde existe este programa el proceso siempre es el mismo, se les entrega este dinero a a cada una de las personas del equipo y luego ellos lo justifican con boletas de estaciones de servicio. Pero a esta persona se le ocurrió que debía cada uno de los miembros de equipo entregar un certificado de rendimiento del vehículo, una foto desde afuera de las oficinas de la municipalidad donde se vea el kilometraje del vehículo y una foto en el lugar de atención a la familia con el kilometraje, para sacar la diferencia y por ejemplo si el auto da 15km/lt y la distancia de viaje fue de 30 km debe realizar una compra por 2 lt en una estación de servicio el mismo dia que se se realiza la visita, mi pareja hace unas 3 o 4 visitas diarias.
También han existido otros episodios en donde esta persona a negado conexión a internet para mantener reuniones con otros servicios del estado, prohibir la impresión de documentos sin una persona de confianza de ella, no entregar equipos para trabajo notebook, celulares( están dentro del convenio y son un ítem en el presupuesto)
Ahora lo ultimo que paso hace unas semanas fue que el supervisor solicito un computador para imprimir a uno de los subordinados de la coordinadora de la municipalidad y a esta se le quedo el wsp web abierto y mientras imprimía le llegaron mensajes y hablaban de el y su equipo, obviamente la curiosidad le gano y ahí se pilla con un grupo de wsp donde esta el coordinador de la municipalidad y 4 de sus subordinados, bueno el grupo para resumir estaba dedicado al 100% al pelambre del equipo nuevo con mensajes como “ si no les gusta como trabajamos en xxxx que renuncien los weones” “ santiaguinos levantados de raja” “ hay que hacer que se aburran y vayan” “ganan mucho mas que nosotros y andan pidiendo para imprimir y que les pongan internet” “oye el xxx todavía no llega y son las 9 ya “ “la xxx se ve super fea con esa ropa” etc etc en el grupo se cuentan todo a que hora llegan, a que hora se van , cuantas veces salieron en el día a atender, cuanto se demoraron, lo que hablaron con quien hablaron etc etc.
Bueno eso es mas o menos el contexto hay varias cosas que se me van , pero esta situación nos tiene muy mal la verdad, mi pareja esta super bajoneado porque estamos amarrados , no es que pueda renunciar y buscar en otro lado porque la oferta laboral en esta comuna es mala, ya nos endeudamos con terreno y casa. Puta lo que pensamos iba a ser un cambio super radical y bonito se ha convertido en un tormento y pido orientación al grupo, estamos pensando en una asesoría pero la verdad no conocemos abogados en la región y bueno es una comuna chica no queremos que todo se sepa antes de hacer o intentar hacer algo, el supervisor de pareja igual esta mal con el asunto pero por el momento su cabeza esta en otro lado ( separación y custodia de los hijos ) entonces no se le puede pedir mucho en estos momentos.
Igual esto es como un desahogo no le hemos dicho a nadie de la familia esto porque no estaban 100% felices del cambio de Stgo a región, lo peor de todo es que empiezo a encontrarle la razón.

If you’d told me that the visitation with my son, an event that happened only every other weekend, would be extended indefinitely, I would’ve jumped with joy. In the end, I wish the circumstances under which they unfolded had never happened.
The clouds were sightless in the clear sky the day Jasmine dropped off my boy, a perfect day to play a little catch in the yard or go fishing at the nearby stock pond. Cyrus bounced out of the car and ran joyously toward me, unaware that his old man was a perpetual fuck up that had broken up the family in the first place. Oh well.
It was a happy day, the birds sang their old nostalgic tunes of a lost Summer in my own childhood. It was warm, not too warm, and the neighborhood was buzzing with excitement as the Spring showers had come to a close. It was as close as it could get to perfect.
The evening light danced against the tree tops, turning a violet hue as dusk began to settle in. Burnt orange water reflected the dying sun as it continued sinking away to nothing. We grabbed our tackle box, the giant beige one my uncle gifted me before he was stolen by cancer, and filled it with the empty, crumpled up bits of plastic that once held bologna sandwiches. As I said, it was a perfect day, very reminiscent of my own childhood.
We’d thrown the fat bluegill back that we had caught, I hadn’t felt like messing with cleaning and cooking them. Instead, dinner would likely be mac n’ cheese with some cut up hot dogs, a staple in my household whether or not Cyrus was visiting. Hopefully I hadn’t run through Oscar Meyer supply.
Home never felt so lonely, the walls never seemed so barren of old family pictures when Cyrus wasn’t around. Sometimes, he only added to the pain. I would never tell him that, though.
Even with the faucet turned all the way up, the water dribbled out and made boiling pasta a very patient game. Cyrus was babbling about some game he was playing on my phone. ‘He’s just a kid’, I thought, and pretended to be interested in whatever the hell he was talking about.
The sun had vanished and the moon was especially bright that night, having slid nearly halfway to its crescendo before dinner was finally done. Cyrus had stolen my phone to the living room, staring at the bright characters absentmindedly as a nondescript Netflix show played in the background.
“Here, buddy, sorry about the wait”, I sat the bowl of neon yellow stuff in front of him, the pink scramble of hotdog jutting out made me feel… a little ashamed? I plopped down next to him and flipped through the various titles on Netflix, most of which I had already seen a couple of times. Cyrus tossed the phone aside and picked at the mess of ‘food’ in the bowl. I can’t remember if he took a bite or not.
“Dad!”, I jumped, reeling from the doze I had fallen in. If Jasmine was here, it would’ve been such a perfect day, such a perfect day. Instead, this is where it all fell apart.
He massaged furiously at his temples, his knees pulled tight against his heaving chest.
“What’s the matter, are you okay?”, I jumped from the couch and got on one knee, putting my hands around his shoulders. I watched helplessly as Cyrus twisted and contorted his body, trying to run away from whatever pain was in his head.
Suddenly he fell still.
I studied him for a while, nearly on the verge of tears as his body had become totally limp. Then, a noise. At first it was quiet, then it grew and grew until it filled the room with totality. It’s hard to describe that noise, almost like a wind turbine if you were up close to it.
From behind the couch, just above my sons head, it peeked at me. Its thick, black fingers ended at sharp, nailess points. Just as I met its eyes, it slithered behind the couch and that’s when Cyrus awoke in a screaming fit.
I jumped awake again, Cyrus sitting next to me as pale as a sheet. His eyes were bulging, glued to the blank TV ahead.
I couldn’t help but check behind the couch, to make sure it wasn’t still there. Then, to my son who was still staring at the nothing on the television. His mouth was hanging open, just enough to allow the continuous stream of drool to fall out.
I ran to the kitchen to grab a paper towel and cleaned the odd amount of drool from his chin. There wasn’t a thermometer in the house but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that he was burning up. A fever, I thought.
I carried the boy to his bedroom, feeling as though I was being watched the entire way, and tucked him into bed. A doctors visit would soon be on the horizon. I returned to the couch in the living room, careful to keep my gaze fixed on the TV and nothing else. Truthfully, I was too afraid to look in the shadowy corners.
That night was filled with nightmares.
The next day I rang Jasmine, letting her know that Cy was sick and needed to go to the doctor. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but Jas was immunocompromised (she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months before we divorced) and my son would be staying with me for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t complain, I didn’t get to see him nearly enough as it was.
That day was very much the opposite of the previous, the sky was gloomy and spits of rain fell consistently from dawn to nightfall.
The doctor had said that Cyrus had a particularly severe ear infection, but nothing that some antibiotics couldn’t fix. He sent us home with a tube of the stuff, my wallet noticeably lighter.
“Apply some of this twice a day, once in the morning and once before bedtime”, the older gentleman had said. He squeezed my shoulder and smiled, though there seemed to be something else behind his wary eyes.
He stopped me again as I turned to leave.
“Sir…”, he started, though he seemed to study his words carefully, “your son kept mentioning something he called the flumes”.
I shrugged, the only time I had heard the word was in reference to a ravine on the edge of town where we’d all smoke pot in high school. Nothing struck me as odd about it at the time.
“They come from the flumes, those noises, those noises, he kept saying”, the doctor pushed closer, his eyes growing wild. I stepped backward, tugging at Cy’s hand as we left the building wordlessly.
Aside from my busy mind, the car ride home was utterly silent. I could hear my boys heavy, labored breaths all the way from the backseat. ‘Inner ear infection, my ass’, I thought.
After laying Cyrus back down for bed, I fixed him a bowl of instant chicken and noodles and decided to give Jasmine a call. The phone rang endlessly before the robotic voice indicated that the caller wasn’t available. I tried once more but gave up after it rang a few more times. Probably sleeping.
I returned to the couch, deciding to rewatch Nightmare on Elm Street for the fourth or fifth time.
After a while, I decided to put on cable, growing tired of the listless titles on Netflix. I was never too interested in the local news, but today seemed as good as any to catch up on the towns happenings. The Grantfield Gators girls softball team had advanced to sectionals and one of the townsfolk were celebrating their 100th birthday.
A ‘Breaking News’ graphic slid below the frazzled newslady on the television. Wherever she was, it sure looked familiar.
‘Wild dog shits on mayors front yard’, I laughed at my own stupid joke and surely turned as white as Cyrus had the previous night as the lady on the TV continued.
“A local woman was found tied to a tree and disemboweled at the scene. Police are saying various symbols were branded all over the womans body, and the material used to bind her to the Elm tree was ‘of unusual property’”, she continued on for a while but I hadn’t noticed, the air had fallen heavy and that familiar warbling had filled the room again.
Heavy footsteps slammed up the staircase at an otherworldly pace. Up the staircase and towards my sons room.
I ran, I swear I ran as fast as I could but I knew… I knew.
When I got to his room, he was gone, the curtains blowing aimlessly in the wind as the window had been slammed open so hard that the glass had shattered in the panes. The bowl of chicken and noodles sat on the bedside table, untouched.
I tried calling Jasmine again and again and again. Still, no answer.
I wanted to write this, to whoever may be reading, so that you know where to look if I don’t return. I know where my son is, I know where Jasmine is.
The flumes took them, or whatever might be lurking in it.

Hi,
I read a lot of the new playereturning player guides and have been playing for quite a few hours now (70+), but the weapon system in particular is so complex that I have a ton of questions, and quite honestly can't find the answers online anywhere.
Hope that's okay!

Questions

• I obtained Wish-Keeper before gaining access to the crafting table, thus when I obtained it, it wasn't red bordered. I got another "red bordered" wish keeper from collections and extracted the pattern (then trashed it because it was 1600 to my current 1810), but I don't see anywhere on my pre-crafting table bow that indicates its level. I have a catalyst I want to craft it with, but I need level 10 on the weapon to do that.
  
  • Do I need to CRAFT the bow WITHOUT the catalyst first, and use that one to level up? I've been using the bow I got from completing Starcrossed the first time a lot the past few days, did it not accrue ANY experience? Or can I get another one from collections and transfer the PL to it from my current one and it'll have leveling xp on it?
  • Or is this bow accruing XP, it just doesn't display it? Not the first time Destiny 2 has been frustratingly vague on its numbers and progress.
• What perks are good on weapons? I know this question is loaded, but goddammit having to sift through hundreds of weapon perks is the most tedious part of this game, especially when the game doesn't tell you what the values are, and not knowing the "meta" of why certain perks are good, etc.
  
  • Currently gravitating toward hand cannons, pulse rifles, auto rifles and snipers. Rocket Launchers and LMGs for heavy. If that helps. I play a strand hunter currently.
• For wish keeper (it's really the first bow I've used) I hear it's really good, but I guess I'm just...not seeing it? My hand cannon (it's the already-mastered one you get from Shaxx in the hall of champions as a first reward, love it) does half the damage at quadruple the firing speed, plus it has the AoE Burn explosion thing that's great for trash clear. Yeah the bow has a lot longer range, and the traps are "nice", but typically not super practical (drop off on the arrow is egregious, things have to run into it, etc.). If I want range I can just use a sniper rifle which does way more damage (green ammo isn't that hard to come by tbh).
  
  • My exotic armor piece is Sixth Coyote which obviously doesn't help the bow, do I need to 'nerf' my dodges to run a wish-keeper-specific exotic armor piece?
  • If not, then what am I doing wrong?
• My Strand Hunter basic build:
  
  • Strand Clone when dodging (sixth coyote so double dodge as well), Suspension grenade. I find the clone is even better than Void's invisibility for reviving teammates and getting out of sticky situations.
  • Stat priority is Mobility (100) > Resilience (~70) > Grenade Stat (~50) > others.
  • Is this right?
• Does the strand clone "look like me" to enemies in PvP? I noticed that while finishing out the PvP quests for New Light, a lot of people would hit my clone which I found humorous.
  
• What should I use my Riven wish shards on? The stuff you give to dommy-mommy for weapon patterns or whatever? I've heard the rocket launcher is good?
  

Genocide looked to the sky. He thought of his mentor. The one who had saved him. He remembered his childhood. How powerless he was. He remembered the anger. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He thought of all the times he showed compassion. How much they hurt him for it. He saw the world before him, a graveyard. Humans. People that were supposed to be made in the image of some divine creator. They were but maggots feasting upon his remains. They ate away at his very being until nothing human remained. His thoughts were no longer his own. He had no joys in life that mattered. He hated humanity more than he could love anything about himself. He remember his first killing spree. Being gunned down by police. Left for dead. He remembered a hooded figure moving towards him. Getting closer the more he neared his death. He saw its pale face. Its impossibly black eyes. It was a man. This figure in question appeared to be of Japanese nationality with long, straight, loose hair. It emanated extreme malice. It offered him a choice. A purpose. Power. He thought the figure a reaper but it identified itself as Amakusa Masataka. Masataka guided him on how to kill and gave him specific locations to kill people in. In a sense, he became a hitman for quotas of people. He inquired what Masataka was. The presence of evil, his ability to appear and disappear at will, how he could control what people could see him and what people couldn't. While vague, years of killing for this being offered some insight. Amakusa Masataka belonged to a group of people not of this world. His people had been corrupted by a dark force long ago and had aligned themselves with the warlord who had subjugated their version of Japan. Their dark high priest assisted the warlord along with two others. These four rulers in turn served a larger order. The four were tasked with bringing about the end of the current world as an act of retribution for some fallen deity. Masataka's people acted as covert operatives for this empire. They were feared across the land and were collectively referred to as "Shinigami". An agent of the coming apocalypse, a servant of evil possessed by the will of those gods of death, Genocide would walk the earth.
Genocide stepped toward the station. A police cruiser rammed into him. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the hood of the car. The inhuman force of the knife created sparks which burst the engine into flames. The car crashed into a streetlight and exploded. A second cruiser neared the scene. No way a man could have done this. Yet still, out of the fires Genocide strode forth. It set upon the second vehicle, shooting out it's tires while jumping 9 feet into the air. The car tries to reverse but crashes into a wall. Genocide lands on the hood and kicks through the front window. Glass shatters under its boot, blinding the two officers inside. Genocide shoots one of the officers with a shotgun, killing him. The second officer in the passenger seat readies his pistol and takes aim. Only two shots fired, both directed at Genocide's head. It casually cocks its neck to avoid them. Then it grabs the officer's arm, breaking it. Genocide uses its free hand to grab the officer's head and bangs it into the dashboard no less than 5 times. The skull is shattered on the final impact. Genocide jumps off the car and continues on his mission.
Detective Evans speaks through a megaphone," This is your first and final warning. Stand down or we will use any and all means at our disposal to put you down." Genocide dropped its shotgun and raised its hands. A group of five SWAT team members rushed out the station, surrounding Genocide with riot shields. An officer accompanies them, edging behind the figure to apply handcuffs. Suddenly, Genocide springs to life , grabbing the officer behind him. He flips the officer over his head, slamming him into the pavement at his feet. Then Genocide stomps his head causing it to burst. Genocide drops a flash bomb from his coat sleeve, blinding the SWAT team as he draws his knife. He drives it into one SWAT member, the knife puncturing the shield and piercing his chest. Genocide kicks the corpse away withdrawing his knife. He goes to another, this time using the end of his boot toe in a rising kick to disarm their shield. He grabs them by the throat and drives the knife slowly into their eye socket. Another is tackled to the ground and beaten to death despite still being under the shield. Another is picked up and thrown into the fires still burning from the first auto incident. In no time, Genocide stood before an indistinguishable mass of gore, blood streaking across his black leather outfit. He laughed" So this is all you can give me. I'm not entertained." Officers took aim from the station windows, and snipers did so from other rooftops. Genocide laughed maniacally as he was rained down upon from all sides by a hailstorm of bullets. His body convulsed, but he did not fall. Moments more and he was on his knees. Still though, their efforts were futile. Gracia looked out and saw a black mist coalescing around the man in black. His blood. Blood erupted from his body only to transform into this dark mist that reentered his wounds. Genocide screamed. No. It was just an elevated pitch in his laughter. Optimism failed everyone yet again. Gracia saw Genocide holding something in his right hand. She could only make out a beeping red light. Genocide pushed the button triggering the carefully concealed explosives he laid in preparation for this event. C4 explosives went off in all the places he saw fit. The sniping posts he couldn't reach. The assault of lead lightened. Then Genocide drew an RPG from...somewhere. He collected himself and fired at the station's entrance. The explosion shook the station. From inside, the lights began to flicker. Communications were down on all fronts. Had he modified the rocket with some type of EMP? Not good. Amisdst the confusion Genocide entered using smoke bombs to mask his presence. Moving like a shadow, he killed everyone in the lobby silently with his knife. He made his way to the holding cells. Still they chanted. Still they praised. Still they raved for the arrival of genocide. Genocide shot the lock opening the cell. Jim Jimenez walked out and bowed before his master. Genocide smiled. He couldn't have imagined how proficient he had gotten with possession. Well, not quite possession. He had known of the Shinigami's ability to share their thoughts and emotions with humans. Shinigami like his mentor were ancient. They had so many years of memories, such strong a hatred for life that they overwhelmed the personality of the victim. The victim sees themselves as one of them. Shinigami can't force the will of the victim, so they find those who are already similar to them in some way. Genocide found the collective universal distrust of police to be a prime sentiment to capitalize on. He armed the inmates, infecting them with samples of his own dark essence.One particular inmate caught Genocide's eye. He knew the man's work. An arsonist. The one whom he recalls was responsible for blowing up his first car way back in high school. Rather than a standard firearm, Genocide gave the man a random assortment of grenades containing a special surprise. Genocide showed them visions of anarchy, of sending a message to a society that used and disregarded them. While this was also true of how he felt, years of living in darkness had changed him. He needed no purpose. No end goal. No justification. He just wanted to watch the world burn.
Genocide's small army broke off to engage several different wings of the station. Genocide went to the security room. He found Wayne, his informant, playing some FPS on one of the monitors. Wayne took of his headphones and asked," You kill everyone yet?" Genocide responded," No. You should get going before that happens. Your life becomes fair game if I run out of pigs to cook." Wayne clapped his hands, "Aight, GC my man, say less." He packed his things and left. Genocide drew a twin pair of handguns and laid waste to the station. He followed a group that took cover in the men's restroom. Kicking open multiple stalls he was surprised to find...nothing. Where had they gone? He turned around and saw his mentor, Masataka, smiling at him. It looked like him. Long, dark hair, black clothing, and soulless, empty eyes. But it wasn't. It was Genocide's own reflection in the mirror. Genocide smiled. He didn't notice the changes at first. They must have happened gradually. Subconsciously. From the final stall, an officer sprung into action, rushing Genocide, hitting him point blank with a shockgun round. Genocide felt the tingling sensation electrifying his body and grew numb. In spite of the pain, he took a single step. Then, another. He came within striking range of the officer and snatched the shockgun. Two more officers erupted from another stall, battering him with baton strikes. Genocide felt nothing. He clutched the shockgun in his hand like a bat and went to work pulverizing his attackers. An officer kicked in the bathroom door, a woman holding a pistol. She fired multiple times to no effect. Genocide stood covered in blood. He even let her reload. Twice. He wanted to see her despair. Her hopelessness. He walked towards her, shrugging off bullets as they pierced his body. His wounds healed nigh instantly due to the dark essence he had been imbued with. He held her face with both hands, lifting her body off the ground. As she screamed, he used her head to shatter the restroom mirror, running down the full length of it while smashing her into it at several points. He dropped the remains of what he held, washed his hands with soap, dried them, then exited the restroom.
The inmates that rallied for the cause of genocide attacked the station. Fortunately, they were nowhere near Genocide in terms of power and only carried one type of firearm each. They shared his healing ability but could be killed quite easily. Gracia encountered a sniper on the end or a west wing hallway. Other officers waited behind corners unable to get close. Gracia noticed the faulty lighting. In this hallway, the lights flickered in intervals of 3 seconds. Finding a pattern and timing her movements, she rushed the sniper at the exact moment the lights went out. Running the length of the hall, Gracia zigzagged, dodging the sniper inmate's bullets. She jumped on a wall, ran 3 feet on it, then kicked off it, pouncing on the assailant. She fired five shots into him, making sure to hit the brain and the heart. Two severe injuries that were impossible for Shinigami essence to heal simultaneously. Elsewhere, Evans took on another escaped inmate. A vehicular arsonist named Carson. Carson had a bag filled with an assortment of different grenades and was happily giving them out like candy on Halloween. "A flash bang here, a bit of tear gas there. Oh. Wait! Was that an ice grenade? Did the explosion freeze your leg to the floor? Whoops. Maybe a fire grenade will melt that for you. Hold on let me get one fore you," Carson rambled gleefully. Evans looked at the carnage before him. Officers burning. Officers partially frozen in blocks of ice. He took a breath and aimed his wristgun. He steadied his right forearm. Carson readied to throw a random grenade. Evans shot it the moment it left Carson's hand. The grenade exploded directly in front of Carson. Both Evans and Carson looked at each other in shock. Confetti. A party grenade? Carson quickly fumbled for another but was tackled and restrained by several officers. Meanwhile in the South wing, Lary had some colleagues set a trap for another shotgun toting inmate. He had them bait the inmate and flee. Giving chase he turned a corner and ran straight into Lary's fist. The inmate recovered and motioned to shoot Lary. "Let's tango. " Lary gave the code word. Nearby officers activated a device. A signal jammer of sorts. The inmate shoved the barrel of his gun into Lary's gut and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The special signal jammer in question was designed for firearms. It was a last resort as it left officers just as defenseless. Lary was having fun. He boxed the inmate in hand to hand combat. Despite the inmate's enhanced strength, Lary's technique pulled through. Lary ducked under one of the inmate's wide punches and did some type of rising uppercut where he jumped off the ground while spinning. One of the other officers whispered" The rising dragon." Lary smiled giving a thumbs up" Yeah, it was a rising dragon uppercut. Saw it in one O my kid's vidya games. Thought I'd try it out while I'm jacked on adrenaline".
Jim Jimenez looked long and hard at himself in the mirror. He was in the women's restroom. Some brainless woman had broken the men's restroom mirror with her face. For the first time in a long while Jim could think clearly. He was becoming sane. At the least he was no longer a raving lunatic. The life essence of the dark gods had healed the wounds to both his body and his mind. He saw his face, his scraggly dirty beard. He found a razor and shaved. He trimmed his beard somewhat. He liked it. He washed his hair. It fell down his face like silk, no longer greasy. His bloodshot eyes once burning with crazed intensity had cooled. He blinked. Just for a second, he saw the man known as Genocide. The man that attacked him. The one that killed him and gave him new life. The drug dealers. The police. They were all the same in his eyes now. They were all to blame for the world being what it is. Jim wanted to hate them. He wanted to take revenge, but he felt nothing. It didn't matter. He knew he was wronged, could logically justify acting against them, but he just didn't care anymore. About anything. He was finally free. Sensing his presence was no longer needed here, Jim vanished into the night. He needed to find someone who had had the answers he needed. Himself. Who had he been? Who was he now? Who could he become? Where was he going? So many questions to ponder indefinitely. So much time left in the rest of his life.
Genocide ran down the station's halls raining hailstorms of bullets upon its occupants. He had a handgun in each hand as well as a wristgun on each wrist. This effectively gave him 4 separate firearms that he could use simultaneously. Lary regrouped with Gracia, Evans, and a handful of others. They radioed all surviving officers near Genocide to flee to the roof. This plan had been set in motion days before the assault and had been kept hidden from most of the force. The plan involved scheduling flights for several helicopters to arrive at some point after Genocide arrived. There would be no way for him to prepare for them and pre-scheduling their arrival ensured they arrived regardless of if they were called or not. Lary and the others set about preparing the second jamming device. Genocide stood among a hallway of bodies. He saw one man clinging to life trying to crawl away. He decided on trying that other thing he saw his master do. He grabbed the dying man and pinned him to the wall. Slowly he drove a knife into his chest. As the man's life slipped away, something else entered his body. Genocide channeled a small amount of his essence into the vessel. He had steadily done this with other casualties around the station whose bodies were somewhat salvageable. He dropped the body he was holding and looked upon the others. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his eyed were black, both sclera and iris. The scene before him changed. Genocide had a vision. He saw a dead gray wasteland littered with bodies. These people however weren't cops and wore traditional Japanese attire. In his hand wasn't a gun or knife but a short sickle akin to a farming tool. He heard a dark voice call out to him. Slowly, the corpses around him began to rise, now mere puppets bound eternally to their master's whim. The bodies sold to the reaper who had claimed their lives. Genocide's vision ended. His eyes had returned normal. Around him, dead cops began to rise. His dark essence had entered their bodies and reanimated them. He sent his dead army to attack the officers fleeing to the roof of the station. These zombies swarmed the stairwell giving chase to the few survivors. There were five of them. They had two flights of stairs to climb and a horde of their former colleagues close behind them. One officer tripped and was set upon by the horde. The zombies didn't bite them but held them firmly in place. The other four officers stared down wondering what to do. They could hear Genocide chuckling. They could hear humming. They could feel the temperature rising. Their colleague and the two zombies holding him were hit by an enormous green fireball. Genocide had fired a Magnum Opus and had charged the bullet to level 3. The Magnum Opus was simply a magnum that shot fireballs, with bullets that could be charged by holding down the trigger. It had three levels of charges. Level 1 was a small reddish ball of plasma. Level 2 was slightly larger and yellow. Level 3 was the maximum charge and resulted in a large slow moving green blast of energy. The officer was ignited and Genocide watched gleefully as the force of the blast sent him flying through a wall. The four officers continued up firing occasionally to slow down the zombies. Soon they made it to a door leading to the roof. Before one officer could reach it, he was sniped by Genocide, a bullet to the head killing him instantly. The remaining three made it out. They regrouped with the others already there, 12 in total, including Lary, Evans, and Gracia. This would be their final stand. They just had to hold out until Genocide made it up there. They just had to keep Genocide occupied until the helicopters arrived. Genocide slowly ascended the stairs behind his horde. On the roof, the remaining survivors faced off against waves of the undead. Evans recognized the attackers. These zombies were being controlled by nanomachines. He heard the stories of several weapons encountered by soldiers on the battlefield. These creatures were called Metaldeads as they were reanimated via machines. They had been officially banned by most of the worlds' governments for being unethical. However, this did not stop the technology from being spread still between shady organizations, terrorists, etc. Evans wondered how Genocide got this form of nanotechnology. Evans long speculated that the dark essence used by most of the killers they encountered was a a form of nanotech however it was different from anything else he had seen or heard about. The dark essence seemed to be an amalgamation of other types of nanotech. Evans had to save his inquiries for later. He reloaded his wristgun and took aim at the approaching group of Metaldeads. Gracia steadied her handgun and shot two Metaldeads in the head. From the single door countless arms seemed to spill forth from the darkness. The other officers took turns firing in intervals. this allowed them to create a steady stream of fire where no more that three guns needed to be reloaded at once. The horde seemed to thin out over time as if they were making progress. In actuality, the Metaldeads were just making room for Genocide to enter. Genocide exploded in a sprint from the door. Everyone fired upon the killer. Genocide had now chosen a wrist mounted mini flamethrower to use as his weapon. He stormed past the oncoming bullets taking some damage, but refused to slow down. He unleashed a stream of fire that caught five of the officers in one fell swoop. Gracia fired five rounds into Genocide's face. He stumbled back. Lary took the chance to fire several mine gun bullets at Genocide's feet. The mines quickly detected his movement and exploded. In seconds, Genocide was on his back.
Staring at the night sky Genocide saw the moon. He reached for it. He called for the darkness to give him more power. His wounds began healing. In the sky he could hear the whirl of propellers. There were six helicopters in total. The first two had evacuated the survivors while the others stayed to engage Genocide. Genocide got up and unstrapped the sniper rifle from his back. He stood before the searchlights as a black silhouette, cornered but unwilling to back down. Lary stared down at him smiling. "Okay!" He shouted, "Let's Tango!" Upon this declaration the second jamming device was activated. Now, isolated on the roof, Genocide's guns couldn't be fired and the helicopters were out of range of the device. Now Genocide stood like a sitting duck. A helicopter fired a rocket. Genocide side stepped and grabbed it. He turned his body redirecting the rocket to hit another helicopter. As it exploded Genocide drew his knife and threw it at another helicopter. Behind the knife was such force that it shattered the helicopter window's glass, embedding itself in the pilot. This helicopter too went down where it exploded. "Holy clucknuggets!Did you see that!?" Lary said dumbfounded. Evans looked out the helicopter door he was in jaw open in shock. "There's no way." He collected himself quickly and radioed the remaining two helicopters to keep moving and to use their machineguns as much as possible. The helicopters reigned down upon Genocide tearing apart his body. Shreds of leather and darkened blood sprayed across the pavement of the roof. Gracia watched as Genocide's body was destroyed repeatedly as it tried to heal. Surely he had to stop at some point. After 10 minutes the helicopters had exhausted their cache of ammunition and soldiers opted to fire their own rifles and occasionally throw grenades. After about six minutes, they too had run out of bullets. Genocide stood unfazed. He had long since healed himself and now appeared intangible with gunfire seeming to pass through his body. His coat once ripped , now appeared whole though on closer inspection seemed to writhe. Gracia looked in horror as she remembered the tales her adopted father had told her. Tales he had in turn heard from his predecessors. Every so often officers had reported encounters with ghost like beings cloaked in a cloud of living dark mist. The beings were rumored to be responsible for the deaths of multiple people ranging from scientists, veterans, mafia, politicians, etc. They were seen near such crime scenes and even more shockingly appeared around several sites where suicides were committed. These beings were reportedly impervious to bullets and filled anyone who got near with an impending sense of dread. If Genocide was connected to them or somehow turning into one , there was little chance they would be able to defeat him. Gracia's fears were confirmed when she saw that Genocide's leather coat had been destroyed and he had replaced it with the dark mist coalescing from his own spilled blood. The dark mist, swirling, grew larger and several tendrils sprouted out from it. Gracia could briefly make out a figure standing next to Genocide. A hooded figure cloaked in the same black substance. The figure stared up at her with soulless, blackened eyes which seemed to beckon her to jump from the aircraft she was standing in. Compelling her to give in to the death that plagued the earth. Genocide kneeled to his master. The Shinigami, Masataka stared down at his disciple. "You have done a great service to us. Even now the sealed god stirs in its slumber. Its...Awakening will soon be upon us. It calls out for war. It begs for famine. It longs to continue its conquest. We are the death it so desires. The death that is necessary for this civilization to grow. Use the power that I have bestowed upon you. Finish the mission as you see fit." The Shinigami vanished and Genocide stood.Genocide stared at his hands. He remembered the first killing spree. He was on a bus. It stopped. A woman got on the bus and walked to the back smiling as she passed him. Something about her eyes unnerved him. They were so bright but something dark reflected inside them. He ignored the thought and put in his headphones. In minutes he had dozed off. He jumped awake. He looked around and froze in panic. All around him, everyone had been hacked to pieces. He saw the driver, actively being stabbed by a masked assailant. The mask, painted white with black eyeholes, stared back at him. It raised a finger over where its lips would be. Even under the expressionless visage, he could feel that same smile. He ran home that morning. He went to his room to find it destroyed. His posters, his computer, his tv, everything, had been ruined. He turned around and saw a man at the end of the hallway holding a sledge hammer. "The hell you been, boy?", his stepdad sneered. The man dropped his hammer and walked closer, veins pulsing with rage. He tried to explain how his car had caught fire forcing him to walk 4 miles to the nearest bus stop, but the man's fist was faster than his words. "Boy!Answer me when I talk to you!!" the man says as he backhands the taste out of the would be Genocide's mouth. He took that beating for several minutes before being left to stare at his ransacked room. He hated how his stepdad went out of his way to destroy the things he loved. Soon, another set of footsteps could be heard. It was his mother standing behind his locked door. She didn't knock, or say anything. She just stood there, doing nothing as always. He never knew if she came to talk to him or apologize. All he knew was that she could never bring herself to speak to or even acknowledge him. Maybe out of guilt or perhaps shame. A year or two later after he had had enough he ran away from home. Living out on the streets alone, without friends, or family, he would embark on countless killing sprees. These killings weren't of his own volition however. He was coerced by some corrupt officers from The Unit. They made him kill on their behalf. Sometimes they were protesters, sometimes they were drug dealers, other times, petty criminals they couldn't be bothered to process. It was routine for him to be used to kill entire houses of drug riddled addicts. During one such venture he entered a drug den, killing the dealer as instructed. He took out several junkies before turning to leave. A woman who survived her injuries clung to his heel begging him to stop. Looking down he aimed the handgun he was carrying at her head of long disheveled brown hair and fired. Feeling nothing, he kicked her body aside like trash when it hit him. Her face. This woman had been his mother. What was she doing in a place like this? He felt a shock of emotion. He wondered if she had always been like this, or had she changed after he left. He never made amends, but decided to stop killing from then on. The unit did not like that. Once it became apparent that he was no longer of use to them they started a manhunt to apprehend him with lethal force. They found him. They killed him. But he survived.
He remembered the girl on the bus. He remembered her eyes. Those of a sadistic killer. Still there was something else inside them. Something faint but deeper. So. Much. Sadness. Just like him. He felt the hatred begin to spread. His purpose, he decided, was to make all humans rot in the hell they created for him.
These people, he thought to himself, these living diseases, all needed to die. Their struggles, their problems, they spread like cancer to others. The only cure for humanity's sin, its collective wrongdoings, was genocide.
Around him, dark tendrils continued to form and expand, spinning in a vortex. Genocide pulled out two pistols. He squeezed the triggers to no effect. "As I see fit, huh? Hehe." He squeezed both guns in his hands, breaking them into pieces. He concentrated. In his hands, two more guns materialized now completely black due to being forged from the dark essence. Forged by his will. Immune to the jamming device that shut down conventional firearms. He raised his arms at each remaining helicopter and opened fire. Countless tendrils whipped out and slashed at his targets joining the dark essence bullets. It was chaos. Dark tendrils and bullets tore through every direction as Genocide spun and swirled around in 360 degrees firing randomly with purpose. A tendril pierced Gracia's right arm, another, her abdomen. She was however, fortunate, as the other passengers of her helicopter were dismembered. She barely had time to jump from the vehicle before it crashed. She fell 2 yards onto solid concrete. She felt immense pain as her right shoulder shattered on impact. She looked up to see Genocide's blade like appendages ripping through the other escape helicopters. She rolled onto her back and tried to steady herself. Within seconds her body began to repair itself. The nanocells inside her had saved her life but were now depleted. She would need another supplement lest she receive another fatal injury. The standard nanocells she and the others had were much less potent than those of the killers they faced. In truth, they had only minimal strength boosts being able to lift 5-8 more pounds than before and healing being limited to one or two fatal injuries so long as death didn't occur instantly. Gracia blacked out. She awoke the next morning in a hospital. There the doctors refilled her nanocells. She learned that the station had been left in ruins. Genocide had detonated some type of minature nuke following his rampage. He always blew up the stations as if to send a message. Gracia looked out the window thinking about why she became a cop. Twice her family had been murdered by them. Her biological family had been killed in an on record drug raid committed by a group of corrupt officers called The Unit. She had been adopted by another officer that arrived at the scene who found her as a child hiding in a closed. Sadly, he too was killed for trying to expose the activities of The Unit. Gracia joined the force to avenge both losses and bring justice to the killers that disguised themselves as normal people. Law enforcement was neither good, nor bad. It depended upon the people that made it up. In the dying corrupt world Gracia lived in, she vowed to be a beacon of light. Evans laid in a bed adjacent to Lary. "That damn Genocide's somethin else in' he?Like the stories you told us were understatements. That man could legit not die at this point in the story. Like he has friggin plot armor or somthin.'' Evans cut him off" I get it. We all got our asses handed to us. But did you see that ..thing that appeared next to him. Right before he created that black vortex that wiped us out. That must have something to do with his power. Maybe there's a still a way to stop him."Lary chimed in," That fella looked like he was on the way to a black metal concert wit all the black facepaint he was wearin' Creeped me out to be honest." As the survivors mulled over their predicament, the cycle of evil continued to spread elsewhere.
Budley flips through the pages of a magazine. He checks his watch. He looks around the gas station and doesn't see any customers. Seizing the opportunity, he puts in his headphones and begins playing an imaginary guitar as he jams to a progressive deathcore album. Oblivious to the screams coming from outside, the store clerk moves on to thumping two candy bars on the counter to simulate drums. Budley sees that his shift has ended and begins locking up the store. He sweeps the aisles and jumps as a shadow appears behind him. He turns and sees a well groomed bearded man dressed in a black hoodie, black shirt, and black and gray camo pants. The man holds out his hand and smiles. Budley rings up the pack of nicotine substitute gum. "Tryin to kick the habit huh?" Budley asks. The man replies, "Somethin like that. Gotta get my priorities back in check. Focus on the things that really matter. That damn KonCreep's a hell of a band aren't they?" He nods to the playlist on Budley's phone. "Yeah, they're killer. just got into them a month back." Budley answers. "You know, I'm something of a musician myself. Maybe you'll hear of me on the news someday." Jim Jimenez says as he sees himself out. He walks to the back of the building and passes an ominous form of graffiti. A woman lays unmoving and above her, written on concrete in red is a message that simply says "Genocide Reigns".

Hi, I (F30) have recently been doing a lot of guided meditations to access akashic records or interact with my spiritual guides since I’m seeking answers to some important questions. Recently, I’ve noticed that every time I ask a question my body begins to move involuntarily. Specifically, my neck begins to form patterns in the air. In some recent questions I tried to make sense of the patterns and it seems they were letters and numbers. Surprisingly, they made sense in response the questions that I was asking.
Has this happened with anyone else? Should I take these responses as a sign?